Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump gestures to supporters at a campaign rally at Greensboro Coliseum, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Greensboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
“I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump reportedly said in a private conversation in the White House. And in an interview with The Atlantic, Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly recalled that Trump once raised the idea of needing “German generals” to him directly.
Donald Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, retired US Marine Corps general John Kelly, has issued a warning for the American people: the Republican presidential nominee meets the definition of a fascist, and while in office, wished he had obedient generals like Nazi leader Adolf Hitler did, and even said Hitler “did some good things.”
These comments from Kelly came in interviews published Tuesday in The New York Times and The Atlantic. They come as Trump has promised to dramatically expand his use of the military domestically to go after so-called “enemies from within.”
According to The Atlantic report, Trump frequently expressed contempt for service members who felt a devotion to duty, honor, and sacrifice and only wanted his generals to be loyal to him — not the US constitution.
“I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two people who heard him say it.
Trump’s campaign has denied that he ever said this, calling the reporting “absolutely false,” but in his interview with The Atlantic, Kelly recalled that Trump once raised the idea of needing “German generals” to him directly.
“Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals,” Kelly recalled asking Trump.
“Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals,” Kelly said Trump responded.
In their book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser reported this incident as well. According to their account, Kelly explained to Trump that German generals “tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off.”
“No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” the former president reportedly responded.
In his interview with The Times, Kelly further said that the former president meets the definition of a fascist after reading the definition of the word aloud.
“(Trump) certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” Kelly said. “He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government. I think he’d love to be just like he was in business — he could tell people to do things and they would do it, and not really bother too much about whether what the legalities were and whatnot.”
This isn’t the first time Kelly’s been critical of the former president, either. He’s previously revealed that Trump called veterans “suckers” and “losers,” for example.
Kelly joins a host of other former top Trump officials who’ve come out against the former president, including Mark Esper, who served as one of Trump’s secretaries of defense, and Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who served as a national security advisor during Trump’s time in the White House.
Retired Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, who served as Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also told Bob Woodward in his recent book War, that the former president is a “fascist to the core.” He also called him the “the most dangerous person to this country.”
Retired Gen. Jim Mattis, who also served as Trump’s defense secretary, told Woodward that he agreed with Milley’s assessment of Trump’s character.
Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, has also said that he can’t “in good conscience” back Trump for a second term, and John Bolton, another ex-national security advisor under Trump, has said there will be “celebrations in the Kremlin” if he is elected again. Alyssa Farah Griffin, the former White House director of strategic communications and assistant to Trump, said the same thing during an appearance on ABC’s The View.
The list goes on. Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s former White House director of communications, has endorsed Kamala Harris. Sarah Matthews, who worked in Trump’s White House as his deputy press secretary, and Stephanie Grisham, who served as chief of staff to first lady Melania Trump, have been extremely critical of the former president, as well.
